Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

e church, since central union, senior presbyter, and local con- gregation were all entitled to their own seal and stamp which usually sig- nifies the right of juridical personhood.53 Leadership Changes Would the 1966 congress also be as radical in electing new leadership? First of all, council membership was expanded from ten persons to twenty- five persons.®4 Instead of five candidate members, eight were elected.5 Only five of these thirty-three persons were reelected from the previous council, although two more who had been candidate members in 1963 now attained full membership. Seven council members represented the Ukraine, two of them also representing Pentecostals.5¢ If one adds Mitskevich and Timchenko as former Ukrainians, then the Ukrainians represented one third of the council, although their membership was more than 50 percent of the total. The Russian Federation was represented by five persons, and there were individual representatives for Central Asia, the Caucasus, Be- lorussia, but surprisingly, none from Moldavia. For the first time, a Men- nonite representative joined the council while another was elected a candi- date member.>” Latvia and Estonia each had one representative and the young Michael Zhidkov, who had been elected their spokesman in Moscow, was also elected to the council. The council, however, met irregularly, so that practical power was in the hands of the ten-member presidium, which met monthly.®8 Half of these were the old guard and included all of the former presidium members who would now need to be persuaded to make some changes in their management style. The new president, Ilia G. Ivanov, had been usually in- © fluential since 1945. He was not likely to start up a new path. In fact, the four major executive positions of chairman, general secretary, assistant The Union Defended, 1963-1969 217 general secretary, and treasurer were all held by men whom the reformers held responsible for the 1960 statute and letter of instructions, But the other five members were all untainted by that event. S. T. Timchenko and N. N. Mel nikov replaced the deceased Baptist leader, N. A. Levindanto, and the Evangelical Christian, A. L. Andreev respectively. Melnikov must be regarded as part of the old guard since he had functioned as virtual head of the Ukraine under the aged Andreev since 1956. Sergei T. Timchenko (1902-1971), on the other hand, provided the image of wisdom and age. He could claim distant links to the prewar Baptist leadership, but had not, since his move to Moscow in 1952, played any leadership role till this moment’®9 The other three presidium members deserve an extra comment. S; P. Fadiukhin was present at this congress in his capacity as assistant general secretary. He was a staunch Baptist, graduate of the Bible school in Len- ingrad in the twenties, and had reappeared in the mid-fifties, He was advancing rapidly, and it was clear that his theologica